Phobie Awards: The 13 Worst People of the Year

Friday the 13th is upon us, in 2013. Let's review the year's 13 biggest homophobes with The Advocate's annual Phobie Awards.

BY Advocate.com Editors

December 13 2013 5:00 AM ET

PHOBIE AWARD: FRIGIDE BARJOTAs France debated whether to legalize same-sex marriage and allow couples to adopt, comedian Frigide Barjot (that's the stage name for Virginie Tellenne) was often leading the massive protest rallies in opposition. What was most disturbing about debate in France, though, was its often violent turn. After France eventually passed the law, Barjot condemned the violence while in the same breath defending it with a well-what-did-you-expect-would-happen attitude. The comments came after a pro-gay activist was left brain-dead in June by a beating from extremists. "This extreme fight is the result of a power that for nine months has refused to listen to the French people," she wrote for the French site Newsring, criticizing President François Hollande for pressing for the law. "The president has caused extremism to grow by passing a law that the French didn't want, and in a manner that was authoritarian and undemocratic. When we refuse to act like a democracy, extremism grows. In a way, you could say that there was a death because of this denial of democracy." Whatever anger she stoked in France, Barjot all the while claimed to be separate from it. So after marriage equality passed, it was all the more strange when she started asking for police protection from the antigay side. — Lucas Grindley